In the News: Tails of Marin
Puppies Are Like Children Who Need A Parent To Monitor Play
By Trish King
Last week, lots of puppies were adopted at the Bay Area Pet Fair and Adoptathon and this week, their new families are wondering how to help them grow up into good dogs they can take anywhere. The answer is that socializing puppies is similar to acclimating children to their environment. All parents want their children to get along with other people. To this end, we take them places in their strollers starting when they’re pretty tiny and continuing throughout their childhood. As they start to walk, many parents take their kids to playgrounds, where they learn to climb play structures and dig in the sand. Always, Mom or Dad is watching the interactions, ready to intervene if necessary.
Doggie parents start off with the right idea — socialization — but somewhere along the line, something important gets lost. Many parents take their young pups to a dog park to play with older dogs, and then leave the dogs on their own to work out any problems. This is tantamount to taking a two-year-old child to a playground where there’s a broad mix of ages (say two to five years), and letting the five-year-old bully the little one. The five-year-old child has no judgment yet — he doesn’t know the threshold of the two-year-old — and within minutes, you have a screaming baby. The same thing can happen if you allow a four-month-old pup to play with 15-month-old dogs — somebody is going to get hurt pretty quickly. And the trauma can last the dog’s entire life.
Consider this logic: We take a puppy from the mother at the tender age of eight weeks. Then we throw the puppy back into the canine mix with dogs the puppy doesn’t know (some with undesirable social qualities) and without a mom around to protect the puppy. This means that it’s up to us to teach our puppy how to interact well with others — but how?
First and foremost, socialize your puppy to people. Let your puppy see men with beards, and people in wheelchairs, on bicycles, pushing strollers and wearing hats. Let your puppy walk around on different surfaces. A pup should feel rugs and tile and stone and stairs, etc. Develop friendships with people who have dogs — not only puppies, but also friendly, adult dogs. If you know someone who has an “alpha bitch” — a female dog who likes puppies, but knows how to set firm limits on their behavior — have your pup visit with her. Like a good aunt, she’ll teach the puppy precisely how to greet elders respectfully.
Your dog should want to be with you beyond everything else in life. Thus, you should provide most of the best things in life — including play. Do play games with your puppy — hide and seek and fetch are excellent. Try to make your puppy as interested in toys as you can — you’ll be happy you did that later.
Finally, realize that dogs change as they grow older. Puppies may be eager to meet strangers during the exploration stage, but as they mature, their circle of friends begins to close. Many adult dogs see unknown dogs as threats or challenges and will not take kindly to being greeted too enthusiastically. People are the same way — lots of kids are willing to play with any other kids. Adults are choosier and require a more formal introduction. If your adult dog doesn’t want to meet other dogs, that’s no big deal — in fact it’s normal. Introduce your dog to a potential friend slowly and carefully, and you’re likely to be successful.
Trish King is the director of behavior and training at the Marin Humane Society.
Tails of Marin appears every Saturday in the Home & Garden section of the Marin Independent Journal
